Apple expands Leopard training to all of AppleCare

Pressing ahead with plans to release its long-awaited Leopard operating system by the end of the month, Mac maker Apple Inc. on Thursday expanded training of its technical support representatives to include all tiers both Stateside and abroad.

As of the early afternoon hours, AppleCare technical support staff across the globe were instructed to follow prescribed training modules on several of Leopard's most essential components, according to people familiar with the matter.

These now include Tier 1 AppleCare technicians in addition to the Tier 2 technicians that were offered a head start via self-paced training modules earlier in the week.

Thus far, Apple has supplied the support reps with four initial training modules covering installation, Mail.app, Parental Controls and Boot Camp. The Cupertino-based company plans to rapidly expand its Leopard training to cover several other system components in the coming days.

Apple's internal plans continue to call for an official launch of Leopard at 6:00 p.m. on Friday Oct 26th. In recent days, the company has become more vocal in conveying this message to its top-tier partners without explicitly stating the date outright incase it is unable to meet that deadline.

For instance, Apple has essentially told some partners that the software is still "expected to ship in October" and that the company likes to ship its major operating system releases "on a Friday" and hinted to later rather than sooner.

Still, recent evidence suggested the software was still under active internal development as of Wednesday due to a handful of bugs Apple hoped to fix last minute.

Leopard will retail for $129 for the single license edition and $199 for the 5-seat family edition.

Hmm...the more reports like this I hear, the less confident I am that Leopard truly did go Gold Master...this stuff should have happened a while ago, considering they are being trained on features of Leopard irregardless of Leopard's actual build status.

What's with the "not next friday" jabber? ..."I'm thinking of a friday after Friday the 12th and Friday the 19th, but still within October."

they must really be cutting it close - possibly only two weeks 'til launch, and they don't have a date pinned down yet? i guess they enjoy the excitement of it all. either that, or there's a decent chance at a delay, but they don't want to announce it unless it's 100% certain.

they must really be cutting it close - possibly only two weeks 'til launch, and they don't have a date pinned down yet? i guess they enjoy the excitement of it all. either that, or there's a decent chance at a delay, but they don't want to announce it unless it's 100% certain.

Both Panther and Tiger were announced two weeks ahead with the 10.2.8 and 10.3.9 being released a few days either side of that announcement date.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rokken

I've got a question. If they do ship Leopard on Octo 26th, will it be only in US or also in Europe?